When it comes to internet connectivity; cost, speed and reliability are consistently the top 3 objectives that must be met. The task becomes more challenging in dynamic environments such as land based or maritime passenger transportation.
Of course, these can be solved in many ways. There are plenty of cellular and satellite internet connectivity providers on the market. However, rarely these needs are addressed simultaneously and equally. Sometimes this can get so out of hand that it results in so called “Frankenstein” solution where individual components may be great in isolation, but completely incompatible together. This is where Peplink and Starlink integrated connectivity solution comes in.
Peplink became the first ever Starlink Authorized Technology Partner. The partnership brings together Peplink’s cellular connectivity expertise and advance network management tools with Starlink low latency satellite internet connection forming a robust, user friendly and cost effective connectivity solution for those dynamic environments. In this blog post, we will examine closer some of the key benefits this integrated solution can bring to your mobility business.
Starlink terminal local API integration
As a part of this partnership, Peplink and Starlink have worked closely together to integrate their systems providing their users an opportunity to manage all their Peplink and Starlink devices from a single portal. Starlink terminal, also known as an antenna, local API integration enables you to see the status of your Starlink terminals in the Peplink InControl2 web portal, the same portal where all your Peplink cellular modems are managed. This, in effect, enables faster troubleshooting and gives one button access to rebooting all your integrated Peplink and Starlink devices.
Starlink local API integration with Peplink InControl2 management portal
InControl2 Management Portal
Beyond the status reporting and troubleshooting, the cloud-based InControl2 portal enables its users easy management of data pools. This applies to both SIM card and Starlink data pools. This is important because Starlink no longer offers unlimited data plans, instead, throttling all traffic to 1Mbps when the monthly allowance is reached. This, in effect, can adversely impact load balancing and SD-WAN configurations.
Starlink connection quality and bandwidth usage monitoring in the InControl2 portal
Secondly, Peplink InControl2 management portal allows real-time monitoring of the Starlink connection quality including display of this information on a handy map view. This is such a unique feature of this integration that no-one else, including Starlink, is offering it.
multi-WAN bandwidth usage reporting
Lastly, Peplink InControl2 also enables single page benchmarking of the Starlink data usage against the cellular modems. This is a useful feature for the purpose of cost management and optimisation.
SpeedFusion SD-WAN
Considering that all Peplink devices are equipped with SpeedFusion SD-WAN technology the Peplink+Starlink integration extends the use of this technology to Starlink terminals. Since Starlink terminals switch between multiple satellites across the duration of a day this may cause issues for real-time video and audio streaming services.
SpeedFusion utilises an automatic Dynamic Weighted Bonding letting users combine Starlink with 5G and 4G creating truly unbreakable connection. The bonding routes each data packet over currently best performing WAN link delivering smooth application performance. Essentially, this type of bonding achieves both increased reliability and bandwidth aggregation for the mission critical applications traffic.
Due to the nature of Starlink connectivity users are likely to experience packet loss. Luckily, SpeedFusion SD-WAN has multiple ways how to mitigate these events. For example, using Dynamic Forward Error Correction (FEC) SpeedFusion algorithm proactively detects and corrects packet loss before these impact your applications. Instead of using up bandwidth to duplicate packets, SpeedFusion creates the least number of redundant packets, thus optimising the available network resources.
Peplink SpeedFusion tunnel configuration example
Finally, SpeedFusion has a powerful session-based load balancer built-in. There are multiple different traffic selectors: source, destination, port, protocol, application and domain name. So, it is easy to craft a load balancing policy to suit your specific needs. We recommend using this for the general passenger web traffic, as it enables to harvest all the available bandwidth without the SD-WAN encapsulation overhead.
In this blog posts we only covered those SpeedFusion features which are crucial to the Peplink+Starlink integrated connectivity solution. To learn more in depth about all SpeedFusion SD-WAN functionalities please see the Peplink SpeedFusion White Paper.
In this blog post, we covered the key features of the unique Peplink+Starlink integrated connectivity solution and their benefit to mobility businesses. However, Peplink and Starlink have a lot more to offer. If you would like to learn how Peplink cellular or Starlink satellite technology can improve connectivity onboard your fleet, drop us an email [email protected]
About RebelRoam
RebelRoam is a leading onboard connectivity provider in coach, cruise and rail verticals. We are servicing over 4,000 vehicles in Europe and the Americas for such brands as Flixbus, Greyhound, Uniworld, Fred Olsen, Elron and many more. RebelRoam is a Peplink Platinum Partner and a Peplink and Starlink Authorized Solution Provider.
Learn more about RebelRoam at www.rebelroam.com
